Commuters well-prepared for Bay Bridge closure

For weeks, Bay Area commuters were pummeled with dire warnings that the scheduled five-day closure of the Bay Bridge could result in a potential traffic nightmare of epic proportions.

Then came Thursday, and sure enough there were snarled roadways as well as some jam-packed BART trains and ferries. But the first full day of the closure didn't produce the worst-case scenario that many feared as the venerable Bay Bridge -- which carries about 270,000 vehicles a day -- was shut down so workers could put finishing touches on the new, $6.4 billion eastern span.

The morning commute was remarkably hassle-free, although the afternoon did induce more travel headaches. Still, it was no large-scale, "carmageddon" disaster as commuters largely planned ahead, dealing with the inconvenience by starting their travel an hour or two earlier with alternative routes.

"We weren't mired in the regionwide gridlock, and that's a good thing," said John Goodwin, a Metropolitan Transportation Commission spokesman. "But everyone's journey is highly personal, and if you're one of those people stuck in heavy traffic, I get that you could care less about the big picture. But overall, while things were sluggish, we kept moving."

The Bay Bridge is a key traffic artery and integral part of daily life for the region. So there was never any question that when the bridge was closed just after 8 p.m. Wednesday, its absence would cause ripples of disruption.

That's why for weeks, public officials had asked -- OK, begged -- commuters to budget extra traveling time and use mass transit.

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That message apparently was heard. And it's quite possible that more people were telecommuting or taking off a couple days early for the Labor Day weekend.

Morgan said that it wasn't an especially ugly morning commute on the freeways, even though the East Bay traffic was crawl-like on stretches of Interstate 880, westbound Interstate 80 and on the San Mateo Bridge. In the afternoon, the crush was heavier as the Golden Gate, San Mateo and Richmond-San Rafael bridges bore the brunt of the diverted traffic.

BART, which is running around the clock during the closure, was the go-to alternative. Before 10 a.m., there already had been 161,166 riders -- 30,682 more than during the same time a year ago.

For daily BART commuter Todd Clark, Thursday felt "like just another day." Standing on the BART platform in Orinda, which overlooks Highway 24, Clark added that vehicle traffic heading toward the Caldecott Tunnel also was lighter than normal.

"I think they picked the right time to do it," he said of the closure.

At Oakland's Jack London Square, commuters found ferries that weren't close to capacity. San Francisco Bay Ferry staffers said the volume was about the same as a normal commute and nothing like the huge crowds that clogged the dock during the BART strike earlier this summer.

Monroe Hatch, 52, who was making his way from Walnut Creek to South San Francisco for a consulting job, gave himself extra time for a 7:40 a.m. ferry, and he found only a couple dozen people ahead of him.

"It's not that bad," Hatch said, adding his drive also had been a "piece of cake on Highway 24 -- it was empty."

Meanwhile, the Bay Bridge was the site of deafening sounds of demolition and construction. Caltrans crews and contractors raced the clock to complete linking the new single-tower suspension span with the toll plaza in Oakland and Yerba Buena Island, where it will connect with the western span.

About 3,000 truckloads of ripped-up asphalt will be carted off the bridge as 2,000 truckloads of new asphalt will be brought in and used to repave sections of the bridge. In all, 56,000 tons of asphalt will be trucked in while 84,000 tons gets carted out.

"We are on schedule, and there is nothing to indicate we will miss the 5 a.m. Tuesday opening," Bay Bridge spokesman Andrew Gordon said.

On Thursday, a few engineers confessed to getting a little misty-eyed about the old 1936 Bay Bridge, which is slated to be dismantled over the next three years at a cost of $240 million.

"When you get out here and you look at what the engineers of the 1930s did with slide rules, paper and pencils, you realize this bridge was a true marvel," said Caltrans engineer Mike Whiteside, who has worked on the new Bay Bridge project for the past 16 years. "It's hard to think that it will be gone in a few years."

It has taken 11 years to complete the new eastern span, and finally the end is in sight for a mammoth public works project whose roots date back to 1989. That's when the 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the cantilevered bridge, necessitating a more seismically sound span.

There has been nothing easy about getting the bridge built -- even right down to the wire with the debate about whether the discovery of defective bolts should delay the opening.

Still, this is a historic moment. The Bay Area is about to open another picturesque piece of infrastructure.

Kathy Mount, 57, of Oakland, has noticed. Mount, who was at Jack London Square on Thursday, waiting for a ferry, said the new span looks beautiful, and she can't wait to drive across it next week.

"I have high hopes it'll be open earlier," she added of the Tuesday schedule.